The
survey covers “Europe” – right up to the Urals - and not just the countries of
the European Union and the languages spoken in them.
It
includes Russia, the Ukraine, Belorus and Moldova and the many languages used
by their inhabitants.
It
covers only languages that are indigenous, and not the many hundreds of
languages spoken by recent immigrants.
Some
of the statistics given for the European Union are for the Union of 15
countries since figures are not yet available for the “enlarged Union of
25”.
Since
the statistics have been garnered from a variety of sources, which have used
different criteria for collecting them, some disparity may be noticed.
Further
data is being added constantly – mainly to the information on individual countries
and languages.
The
process of cross-checking all the information and data is in hand. Updates will
therefore be on-going.
Comments,
suggestions and helpful criticisms will be gratefully received.
David
Sephton
Primrose
Publishing
Danes
Vale
Winter
2004